Organized Uncertainty

Designing a World of Risk Management

Michael Power

Shows that over the last decade risk management has become an increasingly important phenomenom in businesses and organizations

Argues that this expansion is less to do with real dangers, and more to do with organizational accountability and legitimacy

Extends and develops the arguments of Power's earlier, and highly influential, book The Audit Society (OUP, 1997)

The signficance of this argument extends beyond management and accounting to public management, politics, and sociology

Organized Uncertainty

Designing a World of Risk Management

Michael Power

Description

Since the mid-1990s risk management has undergone a dramatic expansion in its reach and significance, being transformed from an aspect of management control to become a benchmark of good governance for banks, hospitals, schools, charities and many other organizations. Numerous standards for risk management practice have been produced by a variety of transnational organizations. While these many designs and blueprints are accompanied by ideals of enterprise, value production, and good governance, it is argued that the rise of risk management has also coincided with an intensification of auditing and control processes. The legalization and bureacratization of organizational life has increased because risk management has created new demands for proof and evidence of
action. In turn, these demands have generated new risks to reputation.

In short, this important book traces the rise of the managerial concept of risk and the different logics and values which underpin it, showing that it has much less to do with real dangers and opportunities than might be thought, and more to do with organizational accountability and legitimacy.